One
of the greatest challenges of a medical corps team member is to care for captured
and wounded enemy soldiers. I served as
an army medic during the 1967 Six Day War in the battle over Jerusalem and as a
battalion physician in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Sinai Desert. In both
wars I cared for many captured and wounded enemy prisoners.
The
Six Day War in 1967 broke out two weeks before the end of my last year at
Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. I had worked as a nurse in the emergency
room of the Hadassah University hospital for the prior two years and I was
stationed at that hospital when the war started. I also went out with the
ambulances to evacuate the wounded back to the hospital and cared for them
during the ride. During the first 72 hours we took care of over five hundred
wounded soldiers and civilians, among them many Jordanian and Egyptian
prisoners of war. All the wounded received the same care at the hospital,
whether they were Jordanian, Egyptian or Israeli. I cared for many enemy
soldiers and struggled to save their lives. For me, they were human beings in
need of medical attention. Watching my medical school teachers and the medical
teams at Hadassah fight for the lives of men who were fighting against us set
an ethical standard for me that I adhered to when I became a physician.
As
a battalion physician in the Yom Kippur War, I took care of several wounded
Egyptian soldiers, providing them with the same level of treatment that I gave
my own injured men. Even though I had
mixed feelings about treating the wounded enemy soldiers, I saw them first and
foremost as human beings in need of help. While my natural instincts and years
of medical training urged me to help any wounded warrior to the best of my
ability, I could not deny the feeling of animosity toward the enemy in the heat
of battle. I managed to overcome these misgivings, however, in the hopes that
our captured soldiers would be treated as well as we were treating the
Egyptians. Caring for these enemy prisoners of war humanized our adversary to
me, and I felt inner satisfaction that I could still honor the sanctity of the
human life, a value with which I had been raised.
An Israeli physician caring for a wounded Egyptian soldier in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War
In
particular, an experience with an injured Egyptian prisoner of war, a fighter
pilot whose plane was downed by an Israeli jet, changed my perspective and
humanized our adversaries to me. As I mended his broken leg and bandaged his
burns, he showed me a picture of his family as a sign of gratitude. In the pictures
were two young children, the same ages as my own two children. I realized at
that moment that he too wanted to see them again. Following this encounter, it
became emotionally easier for me to treat other wounded Egyptian soldiers.
Many
of these wounded soldiers were visibly scared to death when I approached them.
I could see the fear in their eyes, as if they expected that I would harm them.
I wondered if their fear was based on knowing what they would have done to me
should I have been a prisoner of war. I also assumed that years of anti-Israeli
propaganda depicted us as monsters. Most of these soldiers were tense and
apprehensive throughout the treatment and looked in disbelief as we worked to
care for their wounds. I was proud that I could overcome my anger and treat
these individuals as I would have wanted to be treated in a similar situation.
I knew that as a Jew and as a medical professional it was my duty to do so.
The
medical corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had always provided medical
care for all injured soldiers even if they were their adversaries. This is one
of the core values of the IDF and is also spelled out in the oath taken by all
the physicians of the Israeli Medical Corps. (see picture of IDF Medical Corps
oath) Indeed, this policy is being implemented today as the IDF has opened a
field hospital near the Syrian border and cares for victims of the civil war in
that country. Even though there is an official state of war between Syria and
Israel, over three thousand injured and sick Syrian nationals have so far been
treated at this hospital.
It
is my hope that those wounded enemy soldiers and civilians that we cared for in
1967, 1973, and today have served as emissaries for peace and reconciliation
after they returned to their homes. Hopefully, their testimonies have advanced
the cause of peace.
Itzhak Brook M.D.
Article was published in : Jewish Link of New Jersey; Jerusalem Post, Israel Forever Foundation, Atlanta Jewish Times; Kol Habirah Voice of the Capital; Jewish News of Phoenix Arizona; Stand With Us, Jewish Exponent (Philadelphia); San Diego Jewish World; The Jewish Chronicle (Pittsburgh), Jewish Time (Baltimore); Washington Jewish week (Washington DC) , Heritage-Florida Jewish News, The Time of Israel, Hadassah, Hadassah International, and The Jewish Advocate.
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